


We'll Meet Again

by kittymaine



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Ableism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amputation, Fix-It, Homophobia, M/M, Physical Disability
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:40:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26268121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittymaine/pseuds/kittymaine
Summary: Sometimes, the smallest things can make the biggest difference. Cloud Strife falls off of Mount Nibelheim after following a distraught Tifa Lockhart into the night and loses his arm in the process. It's something he barely thinks about as an adult, but something that changes his life completely from that moment on.
Relationships: Zack Fair/Cloud Strife
Comments: 19
Kudos: 69





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> If you've clicked on this fic, thank you! The summary might not have been the most descriptive thing ever, so if you've made it this far I just wanted to explain a little further.
> 
> The plan is that this will be a fix it for the original game where no major characters are going to die with Cloud/Zack being the endgame. The idea is that Cloud losing his arm as a kid will have cascading effects through the rest of his life that will end up changing events of the original game. I don't want to rehash all the events of the game, so each chapter is either going to focus on a big change from the canon, Zack and Cloud meeting and interacting in some way, or just showing a scene that we don't get in the game or any additional canon (like movies, anime or spin off games). If an event from the canon is not addressed, you can assume that it basically stayed the same. Also, perspectives will switch each chapter. This chapter focused on Cloud so next chapter will focus on Zack.
> 
> The rating of this fic will also go up as the story progresses. It will most likely move to Teen by chapter five or six and to Mature by chapter nine. I'll also add tags by chapter and warn for them in the beginning notes.
> 
> Let me know if you have any questions! I hope you guys enjoy the story if you decide to read on.

Cloud ~ Age 9

When Cloud woke up after his fall, he didn’t instantly know something was wrong. Initially the only feeling he felt was confusion. He remembered following Tifa up the mountain and then there was a big fuzzy empty spot in his memory. When he could put things together again he was in bed at home with his mother beside him. He remembered laying in bed for a while after he woke up poking around those fuzzy memories and trying to put them together. He had followed Tifa, he fell, she fell, but he didn’t pass out that he could tell. Something definitely happened after that, but whenever he tried to draw up the memory it was like it skittered away from him just out of reach.

He didn’t realize that something was really wrong until his mother woke up from where she had been sleeping at his bedside. It was her expression that sent a shot of fear through him. She looked exhausted, her eyes rimmed in red, her hair a mess almost completely falling out of her ever present bun. More than that, she looked devastated, her brow crumpled, her mouth wobbly, her eyes welling with tears the moment she realized he was awake.

“Mom,” Cloud had breathed and tried to push himself up to comfort her. But, when he tried to put his left hand down, something was wrong. It was like his hand went right through the mattress. Everything after that was fuzzy in his memory. Waking up was clear, but the actual realization that his arm from the elbow down was gone was another mess of emotion and pain that until this day he didn’t even try to untangle.

He remembered his mom bursting into tormented sobs and tears as she realized that he had realized what had happened. He remembered her holding him and rocking him back and forth, that she promised everything would be okay, that he was alive and that was what was important. But, he couldn’t remember what he did during all that. Did he cry? Was he angry? Did he ask what happened?

He couldn’t remember, even years later. He knew now that was repression. It was probably the same that had happened to his memory of when he and Tifa fell. His brain pushed the painful memories under so he didn’t have to deal with them. Even as an adult, he wasn’t eager to dig up those memories. They were old by now, anyway. There was no point.

The town doctor visited their small house shortly after. Cloud stayed in bed for a while after losing his arm, doctor’s orders. Not that he particularly cared. He was loath to leave the house and his mom didn’t push him. He hated the idea of anyone seeing him without his arm, of what they would think, of how they would stare.

He knew other people in town who were missing fingers and toes. Toes especially were a pretty common thing to lose with how cold the winters could get up in the mountains. Their next door neighbor, old Missus Lorey, was missing three toes on her right foot. She had shown Cloud once when he asked. He knew that there was an old man on the other side of town that had lost his right leg while working in Junon years ago. But, he could hide his prosthetic under a pants leg, so Cloud felt it wasn’t the same.

The doctor had told Cloud he could get a prosthetic eventually but for now he shouldn’t wear anything on his stump. The skin was red and tight, the stitches were big and black and pulled through his skin unevenly. The doctor said there was still a chance of infection and if he had anything tight against the site of the amputation that would just make the chances of the skin degrading worse. He could pull sleeves down over the stump, but no wrappings or close covers until the doctor said it was safe.

If Cloud had anything to say to that, he couldn’t remember it. He knew he hated it. He hated the sight of the stump. Even looking at it made his head spin, made him sick to his stomach, like his brain couldn’t wrap itself around what it was seeing. Yet, being a normal nine year old, he also had a sick fascination with it. Sometimes he would while almost an hour away looking it over, cataloguing every shiny fold of red skin, carefully poking around the edges of the scabs that formed around the stitches.

After about a week of everyone leaving him and his mother alone, the visits started. It seemed like almost every adult had come to their small house at some point or another to offer their condolences, to bring food, to sit and talk and hash out what had happened over and over again.

From listening to his mother talk with their neighbors, he pieced together what the village had come to agree had happened. They said that he and Tifa had gone up on the mountain, far beyond where it was safe for kids their age to be. Tifa and Cloud had gone out on a suspension bridge that hadn't been repaired in years, since it was no longer used by most of the villagers. The bridge had given out under their combined weight and the both of them had fallen into a deep ravine. Surely, both of them would have died from exposure to the cold if Leif, the vantross’ boy, hadn’t been hunting in the area and gone to investigate the sound.

The adults said that Tifa had slept for days and that her father had been beside himself with grief. He had just lost his wife and thought that he might lose Tifa too. Luckily, Tifa had woken up after only three days, around the same time that Cloud had come out of his medically induced sleep. It sounded like people had been ready to blame Cloud for Tifa dying, but as things had shaken out those people were now being shamed by everyone who had the good foresight to keep their mouths shut. After all, Tifa had apparently made it out without a scar and Cloud was now missing a whole arm.

Cloud couldn’t remember how he felt about that either. He was young enough that it would have made sense for him to resent Tifa. He had been following her, hadn’t he? Or, was that memory wrong? Why had she made it out okay and he had been maimed? If he had felt that way, it hadn’t survived past childhood and he couldn’t remember ever treating Tifa any differently than he had the other kids in the village.

When Cloud’s mother’s patience finally had been exhausted and she demanded that Cloud leave the house and play with the other kids in the village, it was spring. That far up in the mountains, there was still a good amount of snow even as the temperature steadily rose above freezing. The snow just went from powdery diamond dust to heavy wet sludge that turned the ground into mud and every little incline into a dangerous mudslide waiting to happen.

Cloud kept his left arm tucked into his jacket and had his mom pin his sleeve up so it wouldn’t flop around. This way, his stump had to stay tucked close to his chest, but at least no one would see exactly where his arm stopped. They wouldn’t be able to see his arm at all. It sucked, because he had already started to get the hang of how to use what was left of his arm below his elbow to help maneuver things around, but he couldn’t bear the idea of the other kids even seeing his stump. He wished they never had to see him at all, but he knew his mom was right when she said he couldn’t avoid the other kids forever.

When he shuffled into the spot in the woods behind Tifa’s house where most of the kids his age hung out, he wasn’t disappointed.

Looking back, he knew it had been honest curiosity on their part. With age he could see that, but as a kid he just wanted things to go back to how they were before the accident. He wished that no one had said anything, but that was all anyone could talk about so long as he was there. They wanted to know if it hurt, they wanted to see his stump, they wanted to know if it would grow back, they wanted to know why it had been taken off, what it looked like before it came off and on and on.

It didn’t help that Tifa just stood there, a little apart from the other kids but with the same curiosity and dash of fear shining in her eyes as everyone else.

Cloud wasn’t sure how long he lasted, but he knew it wasn’t long before he was running all the way across the village back to his house to collapse in his mother’s lap in tears. He remembered feeling more determined than ever to never leave the house again.

His mother had bowed to his despair for a few days, but after that she insisted that he come with her during the day while she worked at the general store in town. Looking back, he guessed that whatever grace she had been given while he was recovering had probably been exhausted by her boss, but that hadn’t occurred to him then. He grumped along behind her through mud and puddles before stomping into the store with his filthy rubber boots.

Even if it was boring in the store, he preferred it to trying to play with the other kids again. He even preferred it to being home alone after a few days. At home, the only thing he could do was dwell on how unfair everything was. At least when he was at the store with his mom he could help her restock shelves or clean the counter. He was big enough he could even cover the counter while she ran other errands, which made him feel especially useful.

Sometimes other kids came into the store with their parents, but with adults around they usually weren’t bold enough to ask him questions. If they tried, usually one of the adults was quick to cut them off. Cloud made sure to stay close to his mother whenever another kid came into the store.

It was almost summer, the snow around the village almost completely melted, when Tifa and her dad came into the store together. Cloud remembered being terrified. He hadn’t seen her since he ran away from her house in tears. He didn’t want to talk to her, terrified of how her opinion of him must have changed. He kept his eyes down and stayed embarrassingly close to his mother.

When Tifa’s dad came up to the counter to pay for his groceries, he and Cloud’s mom started making small talk, oblivious to the tension between their children. Cloud could tell that Tifa was trying to catch his eye around the stuff piled on the front counter, but Cloud kept his eyes determinedly trained on his hand where it rested on the edge of the counter.

“Psst, Cloud,” Tifa eventually hissed.

Cloud frowned. He couldn’t pretend to ignore that. Both adults had obviously heard it and glanced at them, but were tactful enough to keep their own conversation going smoothly. Cloud finally looked up at Tifa, but didn’t say anything.

She looked as pretty as she always did. She was wearing a cute red dress with short sleeves, since the weather was getting nice. Her hair was glossy and long and healthy looking, her eyes were big and soulful. Cloud knew that she was really attractive in a kind of distant way. Every boy in town followed Tifa around like she hung the moon in the sky and every girl in town resented her for it. Cloud didn’t get it, but he understood the dynamic enough to stay out of it.

“Cloud, I’m really sorry for what happened,” Tifa whispered once she had Cloud’s attention. Her eyebrows were folded down to match her mouth, turned down in an ashamed frown. “You should come and play again! We all really miss you!”

Cloud realized that both adults had stopped talking and were now looking down at him expectantly. The attention was too much and Cloud flushed with embarrassment.

“Yeah, okay,” he stammered out quietly and glued his eyes back down on the floor in the hopes that all this unwanted attention would pass him by quickly.

Mercifully, it did. Tifa’s dad murmured some praise to her and thanked Cloud’s mom, who was quick to effusively thank him back. Cloud was sure she wasn’t thanking him just for buying his groceries from the store. Then, Tifa and her dad were gone and Cloud’s mom seemed to be floating. She was so happy while Cloud mostly wanted the ground to swallow him up he was so embarrassed.

Because Cloud’s mom knew about Tifa’s invitation, she wouldn’t hear of Cloud going to work with her the next day. He was allowed to walk with her into town, but she expected Cloud to go to Tifa’s house to play with her and the other boys, no excuses. Cloud moaned and groaned and begged for a few days respite, but she wouldn’t hear it. There was no budging from his mom, so Cloud made the short walk to Tifa’s house the next morning.

He considered peeling off for the woods or even the old mansion above town that he knew the teenagers messed around in. But, he knew if he did one of their neighbors would spot him and tell his mom for sure. Not wanting to disappoint when she had been happy for the first time since he lost his arm, Cloud determined he had to at least try.

Sighing way too heavily for a nine year old, Cloud walked around the side of Tifa’s house to the back yard. Sure enough, there was a knot of other boys already gathered around Tifa. Unlike last time, they didn’t all jump up to mob him with questions. At most he got a few curious looks, but none of the other boys came up to him. Tifa, when she noticed the other boys looking behind her, turned to see what they were looking at. Her eyes lit up with happiness at the sight of Cloud standing awkwardly by the corner of the house. That kind of expression from Tifa was new. Cloud tried his best not to blush, but he hadn’t gotten that reaction under control yet.

Tifa bounced past the other boys to Cloud. She was wearing a white dress with pink edging that day and it swished around her knees as she ran up to him.

“Cloud! You came! I’m so happy!” she exclaimed, taking his hands in both of hers.

Cloud looked down at their hands and mumbled something to the effect of ‘yeah no problem’. He didn’t look up, but could feel the dirty looks that the other boys were throwing at him.

“It just hasn’t been the same without you here. I was just telling Troy about that yesterday. Actually, yesterday we were talking about-” Tifa started up a string of chatter that Cloud thought might mean she was nervous. Tifa was always friendly and talkative, but she wasn’t the kind of person to talk non-stop to fill silence. None of the other boys were talking, though. They looked uneasy and Cloud saw them staring at his arm whenever they thought he wasn’t looking. It was warm out by then so he couldn’t wear a jacket without sweltering. His compromise was a thin long sleeve shirt that he pinned up at his stump and pushed up on his remaining right arm.

That first day was hard. The boys only ever spoke to him haltingly and only if they had to. He thought that maybe they had been used to the idea that he wouldn’t show up again and weren’t sure how to talk to him without talking about his arm.

The second day was a little easier. The boys mostly ignored him. He preferred that to them walking on eggshells.

Each day got a little easier. He was still different. People still stared at his arm, but soon he became a curiosity that was common like his neighbor lady and her missing toes. Strange but with repeated exposure not that interesting.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zack Fair travels from Gongaga Village to Midgar and takes the SOLDIER exam.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay! I'm really grateful for all the kind comments on the first chapter, so if I didn't thank you individually I really want to thank everyone here again for reading and commenting. I hope to focus on this fic for fictober and hopefully finish it before November.

Zack was thirteen when he made the trip from Gongaga village to Midgar.

The fanfare of his exit from the village had kept him warm and happy the whole trip to the city, but evaporated once he was standing in the intimidating shadow of the Shinra building. He tried to summon the images that had kept him feeling safe through train rides and ferry trips. His mother’s teary face, his father’s proud but stiff visage. Everyone had stood outside their homes to throw flower petals at him, small white petals sticking in his unruly dark hair. Some people cheered for him while others cried. He had promised them that he would pass the SOLDIER exam and make all of them proud. Maybe his name would even put his tiny village on the map, if the new mako reactor they installed didn’t do the trick!

Zack opened his eyes to squint up at the shiny metal and mirror monstrosity that was Shinra tower. Nope, that didn’t work. He was still shaking in his old worn out boots.

“Kid, are you going in or what?” a man in a Shinra trooper uniform asked, gesturing with his gun toward the front door.

“Yep!” Zack yipped, his voice breaking embarrassingly. Feeling his face burn with a blush, Zack just barely prevented himself from running the last few feet through the automatic glass doors into the cavernous atrium that served as Shinra Corporate’s reception area.

He quickly noticed a group of other young guys gathered around a group of tired looking adults over. He made a beeline for them. A man who was looking over them and seemed like he was in charge nodded at him.

“Here for SOLDIER tryouts?” he asked in a flat voice. He was the only adult who was in SOLDIER uniform. The others were either in white lab coats or business suits. The adults were easily outnumbered by the teenagers and preteens gathered around them.

“Yes!” Zack said a little breathlessly, pulling his folded and beaten up admittance ticket out of his pocket and holding it up for the man to inspect.

Shinra recruiters had gone through Zack’s village months before. Everyone had been happy to see them. They were there to see about possibly hiring some of the villagers to work in the nearby mako reactor they were building, but had also talked to the kids. They had run what they called a mini SOLDIER tryout for all the kids between ten and sixteen. There had only been about five kids that showed up and Zack was the youngest of them, but the recruiters said he had done the best of all of them and given him the ticket he now held in his hand and told him it would give him admittance to SOLDIER tryouts in Midgar if he decided to go.

Unfortunately, the recruiters hadn’t hired any of the adults to work in the reactor. That meant that if Zack screwed this up, Shinra would have passed over their village entirely. He felt a lot of pressure to do good in the tryouts because of that. In his mind, proving the worth of their tiny village was on his shoulders.

The man in the SOLDIER uniform didn’t even glance at Zack’s admittance slip.

“Listen up, kids!” The SOLDIER shouted after checking his PHS. “You’re to follow me and absolutely do not wander anywhere. If you do, you’ll be disqualified immediately and probably arrested on top of that.”

Some of the kids shifted nervously at that, but Zack just tried to pay attention. They were in Shinra headquarters, after all. This was serious business and as far as this man was concerned, they were adults. After all, they were trying out to become SOLDIERs!

“We’re moving to another floor for tryouts. We’ll test your physical, intellectual and emotional strength until we come down to only the best of the best,” the man said harshly. Zack noticed a few people glancing at them nervously as they moved through the atrium to either the stairs or the elevators, but most of the people who passed them by ignored them.

“But, first we’ll need all of you to sign these waivers!” a young woman in a business suit and tall black heels said, proffering a stack of crisp white paper covered in small black type.

She waved the stack at the nearest boy, pulling a shiny black pen out of the breast pocket of her jacket and holding it out to him. The boy took the pen and started to sign the bottom of the top most paper without hesitation.

“Just your standard waiver,” she said, taking each paper as it was signed and handing it to an older man standing behind her as each one was completed.

Zack wondered what was in a standard waiver. For that matter, he didn’t think he knew what a waiver was. He had never been asked to sign anything in his life, but he knew that people needed to sign things when doing business. His father had to sign some papers when they had taken out a loan to repair the roof of their hut a few years ago. Zack remembered his dad saying it was important to always read a paper before you signed it, but none of the other kids were reading it and no one else had asked what a standard waiver was. Zack didn’t want to stand out by being the only one to say anything. Besides, he felt confident someone else would have said something if there was anything to be worried about.

When the stack of papers came his way, he signed his name without any hesitation.

Once all the papers were signed, the woman smiled at all of them with satisfaction and stepped back to fade seamlessly into the group of other business suits. The man in the SOLDIER uniform shot her an impatient look as she stepped away and then started to usher all of the kids toward a staircase behind him that Zack hadn’t noticed. It was hidden halfway behind a corner and painted the same color as the wall. It seemed like it was made to be ignored.

All of them formed into a single file line at the man’s instruction, Zack allowing himself to fall toward the back. He’d rather some other kids go first. He didn’t want to reveal himself as the country bumpkin he suspected he was amid a bunch of city kids.

As the last of them fed through the door and into a grey industrial staircase, two Shinra troopers stepped in behind them holding rifles across their chests. Zack thought they really weren’t kidding about not wandering off.

The group of teenagers with their cadre of adult chaperones climbed down and down and down the steep concrete staircase, the sounds of their shoes echoing against the flat cement walls to make them sound much louder than they were. Zack would have guessed that they climbed down for almost fifteen minutes before they stopped at a landing that looked no different than any of the others to him and filed out. He thought it seemed unreal that they could travel downward for that long, but reminded himself that Midgar was a city built in the sky. As tall as Shinra tower looked from the front doors, it could have been twice that tall if you counted the floors that traveled down to the actual dirt.

The floor that they stepped out onto seemed as industrial as the stairs they had just traveled down. The walls and floor were concrete and painted gray. There were metal doors spaced along the hallway with numbers painted on them in stark red block letters. None of the doors had windows or anything that told you right away what they were for. Zack followed along the line of kids until they reached a set of double doors and went through them into a huge cavernous space with exposed beams in the ceiling many yards above their heads. There was nothing in the room that Zack could tell, just all the trainees and the adults who had stuck with them.

There began the most strenuous test that Zack had ever experienced and most likely ever would.

The SOLDIER representative there formed all the kids into a grid formation and stepped up onto a small platform at the head of them. Not that he needed the extra foot on them. He was already a few inches taller than the tallest kid among them. Barking orders at them like a drill instructor, the man put Zack and all the other teenagers through exhaustive body weight exercises until Zack felt ready to collapse. Squats, followed by jumping jacks, followed by push ups, followed by more squats. Pretty soon kids dropped to their knees or backsides and didn’t manage to get back up. Every time it happened one of the troopers who had stood silently at the back of the room would step forward to pick the kid up and carry them out the room. Zack assumed that they sent them back up topside and out the front doors, marked their records as failures and closed the book on them. The threat of having the same done to him made Zack keep pushing far past his own limits.

He had no idea how long they kept moving at the SOLDIER’s demanding voice. When he did call for a stop, all of the boys in front of him collapsed in exhaustion. But, they wouldn’t have long to rest.

As soon as they were done, the SOLDIER stepped out of the way and a man in a white lab coat handed out clear data pads to all of the kids who remained. He explained they would have an hour to complete the test on the pad.

This, Zack had not expected. He didn’t consider himself very smart, especially when compared to kids from all over the two continents. There was no school in Gongaga village. They had a sort of school that kids attended during the off season when there was no planting or harvesting to be done. It was run by the elders in the village where they were taught basic stuff like reading and writing and arithmetic. But, Zack was sure nothing he learned there would compare to kids who had gone to a real school.

Zack quickly realized that he needn’t have been afraid. The questions weren’t for math or reading comprehension. They all seemed to be moral dilemmas. One of the questions asked what someone should do if they saw someone stealing company property and another asked if you should let a stranger into your place of work. They all seemed straightforward enough and Zack answered the way he expected you should answer in something like a job interview. He figured this part of the test must sort of be like a job interview for Shinra, so he made sure to keep his answers as close to what he thought they wanted to hear as he could.

Before all the kids were finished, the same man gathered up the pads. The kids who didn’t finish were escorted out again. This time there was some grumbling and one of the kids who was much older made a loud fuss about needing more time to answer, but he was ignored and escorted out like all the rest.

The SOLDIER stepped forward after all the pads were collected and the failed kids escorted out and the exercises started again. Zack swallowed his groan of protest, pushing his body to respond to commands for more push ups, more jumping jacks. This time, if kids collapsed, the SOLDIER would come around to urge them to get up. If they didn’t, they were escorted out again. More kids left steadily until the exercises were over and the pads were passed out again. This time the questions did have some math and science and reading mixed in. Zack found he was too tired to be anxious. He knew if he didn’t finish in time he would fail and be sent out, so he just answered as quickly as he could and managed to just barely finish before all the pads were handed in.

They exercised again, then did a test, then exercised again. Just when Zack thought that he had to give up, that he had absolutely nothing left to give, physically or mentally, the SOLDIER representative announced that the test was over.

“Congratulations,” he said loudly but unenthusiastically. “Look around you because this is officially the class of 1992. You’ll be spending the next six months training together.”

Zack glanced around and was floored to find only three other kids with him. They all looked about as destroyed as he was. There was no celebrating. None of them could even muster the strength to get up off of the floor and had to be levered up by the troopers still stationed at the back of the room and carried to a small dorm at the end of the hall and dumped into their beds.

Zack stared at the underside of the bunk above him. He was in a daze. He was in SOLDIER just like he wanted, but he wasn’t happy and he didn’t quite understand why.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been such a long time since I played Crisis Core. I don't remember if they showed or talked about the SOLDIER exam. If they did then I apologize because I'm sure this chapter is like canon heresy, haha.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cloud attempts to join SOLDIER.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is another big divergence for Cloud! Also, some new tags for this chapter, just a head's up!

Cloud is two weeks from his fourteenth birthday when he asks Tifa to meet him at the top of the water tower after dark. It’s stupid and dramatic, but he feels like he’s allowed to be a little bit dramatic considering the news he’s about to deliver.

The only person who already knew that he was leaving town was his mom. He didn’t want any theatrics, so he told her as soon as he was sure he was going to do it. He thought she understood why he was leaving and what he was trying to prove. Even if she didn’t like the thought of him leaving, she hadn’t tried to stop him. He had talked the idea over with Tifa a few times, but she had always seemed against it and he had never pushed.

From the look on her face when she reached the top of the ladder, she already knew what he was going to tell her. Even so she sat on the edge of the wooden catwalk around the edge of the reservoir basin and listened to him rattle off his reasons and his intentions with a serious and patient expression.

“What if they don’t accept you?” she asked when he finished, giving a pointed look to his missing left arm.

Cloud’s face set into a determined frown. “Their flyer says they’ll take anyone if they’re the right age and they can pass the exam. I’m stronger and faster than all the other guys in town. I’m a better hunter than most of the woodsmen. I’ll pass the exam,” he said.

Tifa frowned down at her knees, exposed in the short cyan blue dress she was wearing. She was still the prettiest girl in town and only seemed to get more beautiful every year. Since they were kids she had grown from being a friendly neighbor girl to his best friend. This only served to act as a wedge between him and all the other guys his age, despite the fact that he was gay. Or, maybe because of it.

“I know all that,” Tifa said quietly. “I just think it’s stupid to risk your life for Shinra. You know my dad likes you. You could work for him or even make a good living trapping and hunting. Like you said, you’re better than half the woodsmen in town and you’re half their age or more.”

These were all the same things Tifa had told him the last time he brought up joining SOLDIER. They were all really good reasonable suggestions and not a single one appealed to him at all.

“I need to prove that I can do this,” Cloud said, turning to look out at the town below his feet. It was quiet and dark, the smoke curling out of chimneys the only sign that it was inhabited at all.

“Do you need to prove it to yourself or to them?” Tifa asked with a little more bite than he was used to hearing from her. Frowning, Cloud turned to look at her. She was scowling out at the darkness, at their hometown, like it did something to her personally. “Because, you don’t owe them anything,” Tifa added in a low whisper.

Cloud turned to look back out at the darkness again. The stars overhead were bright, swirling and shining in the blackness.

“I know,” Cloud agreed after a moment. “I’m not angry at them, Tifa. I’m just over it. I want to be over it and I want to be gone, that’s all.”

“You’re not angry? Not even at Leland?” Tifa asked in disbelief. Cloud grimaced at the sound of Leland’s name. “Cloud, he pushed you off the side of Mt Nibel! You’re lucky you’re not dead.”

Leland Tailor was the brother of Cecil Tailor, whom Cloud had made out with at the May Day Festival a few months earlier. Some adults had stumbled on them and broken it up, but by the end of the festival it was the talk of the town. Cloud didn’t deny anything. He didn’t feel he had to. But, Leland had concocted an over the top story about how Cloud had lured him away from his friends and threatened him until he agreed to kiss him and told it to anyone who would listen. Anyone with a functioning brain would know that Cecil, half a head taller and two years older than Cloud, was lying. But, Leland was obviously desperate to believe his brother’s lie and had made tormenting Cloud his raison d'etre ever since.

“I’m not about to turn around and try to be Leland’s best friend,” Cloud scoffed. “He can choke on a dick for all I care. I just think wringing my hands over him and everyone like him isn’t worth it.”

“It’s not fair,” Tifa said, pulling on Cloud’s shirt sleeve. Cloud turned toward her. “None of it is fair to you.”

“I did make out with his brother,” Cloud reminded her with a mischievous smirk. “So, I got a little something out of it.”

Tifa rolled her eyes to express what she thought of that way of thinking. “He should be angry at his brother. I don’t understand why him and his asshole friends have to go after you.”

“Because, it’s easier to hate me than to hate his brother,” Cloud reminded her, the smirk dropping off his face.

Tifa hung her head, her long dark hair flowing over her shoulder, catching the light and shining in the dark. “I know,” she whispered. “It just isn’t fair, Cloud. I hate it.”

“I know,” Cloud agreed. “Me too.”

“Will you promise me something?” Tifa asked after they had sat there for a while, commiserating in silence.

“Sure,” Cloud agreed readily.

“If I’m ever in trouble, real trouble, will you come to save me?” she asked, looking up at him with a playful smile. When Cloud gave her a doubtful look, she added, “Just once! Some day, I might need a hot shot SOLDIER to come get me out of trouble. I just want to know you’ll come even if you make it big.”

Cloud huffed out of his nose and smiled at her. “Yeah, sure,” he agreed. “I’m sure I can help you out, just once.”

Tifa smiled big at him and he returned her grin. And, just for a little while, they both let themselves believe that everything would work out fine.

* * *

The morning that Cloud planned to leave, he had his mom cut off his ponytail and shape up the back of his hair. Short hair would be easy to maintain and would keep him cool in the heat of the machine city. She had grown teary eyed while she snipped away at his hair and had insisted on keeping the ponytail. Cloud hated the idea of his ponytail still existing in his mom’s house somewhere, but in the end couldn’t begrudge her this one request.

He packed up his clothes, some food and little else and left his house. He didn’t stop at Tifa’s house on his way. They had already said their goodbyes the night before. He didn’t greet any of the villagers. It was early and the only people out were those who had jobs to do that required that they get up with the sun. He had already paid the guy who came in to deliver supplies to the general store to let him ride along on the back of his truck on the way to the next big town. From there he would get on a bus that would transfer three times before it let him off at Costa del Sol. There, he would stow away on a freighter to Junon and then take a bus again the rest of the way to Midgar. It was a long journey and one he had saved up for over a year to make.

Cloud circled behind the general store to find the man already there delivering the dry goods. Cloud turned back to look at the deserted town square and waited to feel something. He expected fear or anxiety, maybe even excitement to strike him as he took his last look at his home town. Instead, he just felt a sense of finality. Something told him that it would be a long time before he saw Nibelheim again if he ever did and he was resigned to it. He would miss Tifa and his mom and maybe some of the other adults. Tifa’s dad was nice to him. But, everyone else could eat dirt as far as he was concerned. He was too conflicted about his hometown to feel any particular way about leaving so he pushed it to the back of his mind and tried to forget about it.

The trip to Midgar took almost two weeks. Cloud spent a lot of nights sleeping in the backs of buses or under trees or rocky overhangs. He had packed basic camping things as well as his own preserves and he was glad for it. The food available to buy at the bus stops would have blown through his extra savings quickly and he often had to forego renting a room to sleep outside for the same reason. The weather didn’t get near as cold at night as it did on Mount Nibel, even in the desert, so sleeping outside wasn’t so bad. Cloud stayed wary of everyone he traveled with and didn’t have any meaningful conversations with anyone. Not that it mattered, considering that none of them stayed with him more than one or two legs of his journey.

By the time he got to Midgar, Cloud’s clothing was dirty and ripped in a few places. His pack was also noticeably lighter with most of the food now eaten. He was down to a few hardtack crackers and one solitary piece of deer jerky that he had over salted when he dehydrated it. Walking through the congested city streets, Cloud’s nose was assaulted with the smell of all kinds of good food, but he ignored it. He only had a little money left after paying for all those buses, bribing the trooper guarding the cargo ship in Costa del Sol and all the other little fees that cropped up on his trip. He wasn’t sure what other unexpected costs would come up, even so close to his goal. He needed to hold onto his money. He could eat the salty dried meat if he had to.

Cloud followed the flow of traffic toward the monolithic Shinra tower in the center of the city. It easily towered over every other building, an edifice of shining dark glass and steel with the red and black Shinra logo emblazoned proudly on its front. Cloud followed the trickle of people in business suits as they filed through the big glass doors leading into a huge glass atrium. It was all done up in treated blue glass and steel beams painted pristine white. There were two big sweeping staircases leading up to a higher level with elevators tucked tastefully between them.

Casting around, Cloud looked for other kids like himself. He had triple checked the date at the bus stop when it had come in the night before. He knew that he was at Shinra on the right date to take the exam. Just in case, he clutched one of the posters that had been plastered all over Nibelheim months ago boasting about the upcoming SOLDIER tryouts with the date and time to participate printed in thick black type at the bottom.

After a few nervous seconds of standing still against the tide of moving bodies, Cloud noticed a group of teenage boys gathered around a tall man in a SOLDIER uniform. Cloud dodged around Shinra employees to get to the group, stopping just a few feet away once he got there. The man in the SOLDIER uniform immediately noticed him and stepped through the other kids to him.

Cloud stood up as straight as he could. He tried to look as serious and confident as he could manage. It wasn’t hard seeing as he wasn’t the most emotive person in the first place. The SOLDIER’s expression remained a stern frown as he came to a stop in front of Cloud.

“Do you have an admittance ticket?” the man asked, giving Cloud’s missing forearm and hand a pointed look.

Cloud frowned and his heart shot up into his throat. He had no idea what the man was talking about. The flyers hadn’t said anything about an admittance ticket.

Before he could answer, a much younger boy just behind the SOLDIER whispered loudly to another boy, “Were we supposed to have an admittance ticket?” Both boys looked as shaken as Cloud felt.

“I don’t have one,” the other boy whispered back urgently. “Shit, what do we do?”

The SOLDIER shot them a quelling look and Cloud felt his heart sink rapidly from his throat to his stomach. He thought he had an idea of what was happening, but he hoped he was wrong.

“The flyer didn’t say anything about an admittance ticket,” Cloud said evenly, starting to unfold the worn yellow paper in his hand.

“If you would have seen a recruiter first, they would have told you we can only take able bodied young men,” the SOLDIER said without pausing to let Cloud pull out his paper.

Cloud’s thin eyebrows pulled down low over his eyes. He felt his resolve harden. This sure was what he thought it was, but he wasn’t going to let this guy blackball him out of the tryouts, SOLDIER or not.

Cloud held out the poster and practically shook it under the SOLDIER’s nose. “No where on this flyer does it say ‘able bodied’. It says ANYONE can try out if they’re the right age.”

“Kid, I don’t care what the flyer says. I’m saying Shinra doesn’t want a kid missing half a fucking arm,” the SOLDIER growled, his nose wrinkling and teeth flashing as he gestured angrily at Cloud’s missing hand.

“That’s bullshit,” Cloud spat. People were staring now. All the kids waiting to take the exam definitely were, but the people passing through the atrium were slowing and looking at the sound of their raised voices. From the corner of Cloud’s eye he could see two beefy guys in black suits making a straight line for the two of them and knew that he only had moments to make his case.

“If you just let me take the exam, I’ll show you that I have what it takes,” Cloud hissed. The SOLDIER smirked down at him, looking smug. “Unless you’re scared that I’ll show up every other kid here.” The SOLDIER’s smirk quickly turned ugly. He opened his mouth to say something, but Cloud’s time was up.

“Is there a problem here?” one of the beefy guys asked as they stepped up to Cloud and the SOLDIER.

“Escort this kid out of the building,” the SOLDIER said dismissively, waving his hand toward Cloud.

The beefy guy who hadn’t said anything yet put his hand on Cloud’s shoulder, but he shook him off with a glare. “Don’t touch me,” he snapped. “I can fucking walk.”

The two huge men walked with him out the front doors and the rest of the way down the steps until he was standing on the street in front of Shinra tower. Then, they stood there with their huge arms crossed in front of their chests, their muscled arms straining the seams of their suit jackets. Cloud gave them one last dirty look before turning around and walking aimlessly into the city.

He was so angry his hand was shaking. It didn’t help that he had no idea what to do. He walked hurriedly, looking instinctively for some place to hide. As he neared a small alley between two tall brick buildings, Cloud made a sharp turn into it and followed the winding path, dodging overflowing trash cans and wooden boxes until he reached a dead end piled high with trash.

His breath was coming quickly, his chest felt tight and his eyes stung with unshed tears. With a rough cry of frustration, Cloud kicked a bag of garbage at his feet and it split open, spilling coffee grounds and blackened banana peels onto his boots.

This had always been a possibility, he knew that. He knew that people took one look at his arm and assumed he couldn’t do anything. That he was useless. That all he was good for was to make themselves feel better. They could look at him and think, ‘Well, at least I have both hands!’. If he managed to do things they couldn’t, he knew it pissed them off. After all, if a kid with no hand could do something they couldn’t or wouldn’t, what did that say about them?

His mom had tried to warn him that there was a chance they wouldn’t take him. So had Tifa, in her own gentle way. They had asked him what he would do if he made the long trip to Midgar, used up all his money and resources to get there, and then ended up stranded in a strange city that he didn’t know or understand.

All of these thoughts swirled in Cloud’s head. What was he going to do? Should he try to get back home? Should he at least leave Midgar or was it better to stay there and see if he could find a job? God, how was he going to tell anyone back home what had happened? He couldn’t, he just couldn’t tell them after all that big headed talk about becoming a SOLDIER and showing all of them how much better he was than them.

The tears were threatening in earnest when a rough deep voice behind him dragged him out of his thoughts.

“Hey, kid!” someone yelled from just a few yards behind him.

Cloud startled and spun around to face whoever was yelling at him. He expected someone from one of the businesses that tossed their trash there, yelling at him for breaking their trash bag and making a mess in the street. He hadn’t expected a huge man absolutely covered in dark brown hair and bristling with almost as many weapons. This man had two huge swords strapped to his back, two matching guns on his hips, a knife the size of Cloud’s forearm strapped to his thigh, and two bandoliers loaded with bullets criss crossing his chest. He had long wavy hair tied back in a tight ponytail at the base of his neck and a beard big and bushy enough to cover everything from the apples of his cheeks to his collarbone.

Cloud couldn’t help but stare. He sort of looked like some of the men who hunted on Mount Nibel, muscled and worn in equal measure from fighting the mountain every day of their lives. But, none of the men from his village looked half as dangerous as this man.

“I just saw you leave Shinra Corporate. Did you come for the SOLDIER tryouts?” the man asked, gesturing over his shoulder with a thumb.

Cloud frowned at the bear of a man in front of him. “You mean, you followed me after you saw them kick me out?” he asked slowly. He realized too late that his voice sounded like he had been crying even though he hadn’t shed a tear yet and he absolutely hated that.

The man smirked like Cloud had said something funny. “Yeah, something like that,” he said with a shrug. “They got a problem with that arm, I guess? Or, lack of one, I suppose,” the man said, gesturing at Cloud’s stump.

Glaring, Cloud turned his body to put his maimed left arm out of view. He was getting really tired of people pointing at his messed up arm.

“Those Shinra idiots ain’t about to put the work into someone like you. It ain’t your fault. They’re morons to pass on a sharp edged kid like you, but what else is new,” the man said gruffly, crossing his thick arms over his chest and grinning down at Cloud.

“Okay,” Cloud said cautiously. He could smell a pitch coming and suddenly regretted coming down into that alley. This guy was huge and armed to the teeth and Cloud had nowhere to run. He wasn’t looking forward to trying to say no gently to whatever the guy was going to try and sell him.

“Sorry, I ain’t introduced myself. The name’s Hudson Bear, but you can call me Hudson,” the man said, extending his right hand to shake. Cloud took a few cautious steps forward and shook his hand. It was rough with callouses, the handshake firm but not at all painful. Cloud did his best to match him.

“Cloud Strife,” Cloud said as they released their hands.

“Ain’t you gonna make a crack about my name?” the man asked with a goading grin. When Cloud just raised his eyebrows at him, he explained, “Because I look like a bear and my last name is Bear?”

“Do you want me to make a crack?” Cloud asked incredulously.

Hudson burst out with a laugh like Cloud was especially funny, which only put Cloud on edge. He sidled a little closer to the nearest wall and eyed the space between Hudson and the mouth of the alley.

“You know, if you want to fight, I could use a sharp kid like you,” Hudson said, once he had gotten his laughter under control.

Cloud stopped looking for an escape and looked at Hudson again. That wasn’t the sales pitch he had been expecting, so it gave him pause. He gave Hudson a thoughtful look.

“What do you mean?” Cloud asked as flatly as he could manage.

“I’m a mercenary,” Hudson said, gesturing to the two swords on his back. “But, I’m getting older and could use a healthy young guy like yourself to help with some of the heavy lifting. It really ain’t all that different from working for Shinra. In fact, it ain’t uncommon to work for Shinra on a contract basis,” Hudson explained.

Cloud frowned at him. It seemed too good to be true, that he would get turned down by Shinra and then immediately get an offer to do something similar.

“Are you serious?” Cloud asked suspiciously. “I mean, doesn’t this bother you? Aren’t you worried I won’t be able to swing a sword?” Cloud continued to ask, holding up his stump.

The smile Hudson gave him had too much teeth to be friendly or reassuring. “Kid, I know that look in your eye. You’re looking to prove something. I’m sure something like a missing hand ain’t gonna stop you.”

Cloud held Hudon’s eyes for a long time. He looked half wild, angry and dangerous. Cloud didn’t look like that, but he felt like that. He was hungry for something and it sure seemed like Shinra wasn’t going to give it to him.

He didn’t know if he could trust Hudson, but he felt like this was as close as he was going to get to what he was looking for in Midgar so he had to take it.

With a wry twist of his lips, Cloud shoved his hand and stump into his pockets and said, “Fine. You got a deal.”


End file.
